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Tycho

It was a montage of scenes just like the end of the new Return of
the Jedi
.  All the races of the galaxy celebrated in culturally
appropriate ways when they heard that

href="http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000746277">

Garfield
had been pulled from the LA Times.  It’s hard not to get caught up in
the energy of the moment, but it’s more than likely just comics page deck-shuffling, so “the revolution” is probably not coming
anytime soon.  This leaves me with bushels of unfulfilled fantasies.
Huge orange cat statues hauled off their pedestals by tanks.  Every
Jim Davis in every wrinkle of every dimension dragged gasping to the
bottom of the ocean.

I don’t know where the stricture against upstart webcomics saying bad things about our print forebears originated, but no-one ever consulted me and I never ratified that document. 

That being said, we are desperate for the legitimacy that print supposedly offers!  We too long to chide whipper-snappers and wear comfortable adult diapers.  To that end, we did our best to secure that recently vacant funny papers real estate.  All in all, I think the meeting went well

We are still grasped by World of Warcraft, playing it every night and talking about it at length every day.  We have also created a backstory that seamlessly integrates our retail and beta characters in a single epic campaign of vaguely medieval disillusionment and vengeance.  I don’t know where that goes in the overall geek hierarchy - Lore Sjöberg never enunciated it with any specificity - but I have a feeling that it’s not going to raise our stature in such a calculation.  We briefly considered taking the strip over for a thirty page recitation of those glorious imaginary deeds, but I think we understood instinctively that though you’re alright with the occasional plunge into bracing continuity two and a half month’s worth was less of a plunge and really more of a lifestyle.  It was super elaborate, though.  I had to make a chart.   

There is, however, a temporary respite from the rigors of my priestly duties:  here on the opposite side of the torrential holiday releases, what you might call “the lee of the stone,” the next four days have the new Suikoden, Mercenaries, the new GBA Zelda, and the one that stands out even in this company - Resident Evil 4

Gamerankings only has three reviews on file thus far, but with two tens and a nine point eight it is easy to determine the prevailing wind.  As near as I can tell, and I’ve seen every Goddamn frame of video ever released, it’s a kind of grisly, mature action game with context sensitive, timing-based action buttons and vastly more interactive environments.  There’s even stores, where one can buy bullets, which all by itself represents healthy progress.  The most recent video, the one you can see in some kiosks, seems to hint at some possible points of continuity with previous titles.  I’m looking forward to an opportunity to gently set down my shadow wand and raise to my shoulder a bolt-action sniper rifle.

(CW)TB out.

in a distant hellhole

Gabe

Wiley, the guy who draws the comic “Non Sequitur” took another shot at Web publishing recently. You can see it published on the web here.

This guy has been giving Scott Kurtz a lot of shit over Scott’s syndication deal. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, any newspaper that wants to run PVP can do so for free. It’s just free advertising for Scott. The more people he can drive back to his site, the more eyeballs on his ads and the more money he makes.

I sort of feel bad for Wiley, I mean it’s not his fault he’s old and doesn’t understand technology. He’s like a doddering old man sitting in his horse and buggy, shaking his liver spot covered fist at passing automobiles. He thinks that web publishing is for kids and lacks the integrity of good old fashioned paper. Let me tell you about web publishing Mr. Wiley.

Six years ago my friend and I started publishing our comic strips on the internet. Now Penny Arcade is translated into five different languages and read by 3.5 million fans in countries all over the world. When we have a convention to play video games and talk about Penny Arcade, over 3000 people show up. When we ask our fans to donate to charity they give $310,000 to the Children’s Hospital. Newspapers like the New York Times write long articles about how fucking awesome we are. Huge companies pay us to create web comics based on popular license like Tom Clancy and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.  All of this came from publishing our silly little comics on the internet.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, fuck you and fuck your stupid newspapers. We don’t need you.

-Gabe out